The world's most robotic-automated blood-test system has recently been opened at Hillerød hospital. (All speak in Danish.): [YT]www.youtube.com/watch?v=se8dOF9-9WA[/YT] The blood-samples are scanned and photographed and the information transferred to the 'puck' (the small black thingy holding the sample) Along the line there are five different machines: first (for most samples) is the centrifuge.... yada, yada ...will already have paid for itself by 2014 due to the efficiency of the system - partly due to the lesser use of reagents and materials, The Chief Physician explains, though not all blood analysing machines could be placed in the same room. 6,8 Millions samples are to go through this system every year. Wherever in the world this happened, I find it strange to know that it hasn't happened before... the 'new' part of it isn't very new, if you ask me! -I just posted it because "The Engineer" (weekly magazine for engineers) seems to make a big deal of it -and I find it strange that, say, American hospitals apparently don't have this sort of machinery... ...and because I wondered how a board like this would a´react to such a machine
Phlebotomy is an art, I think there are way too many variables for that to be attempted any time soon. As someone who has had part of her anatomy replaced by a computer, I'm cool with the robot blood scanner.
Apparently some do: http://advance.uconn.edu/2007/071210/07121012.htm http://www.provena.org/covenant/body.cfm?id=129&action=detail&ref=2687 http://www.medgadget.com/2010/05/im..._blood_testing_system_gets_us_approval_1.html http://www.novartisdiagnostics.com/products/instruments/procleix-tigris/index.shtml Rampaging robot vampires that charge during the day and feast on the blood of unsuspecting hospital patients by night?
This is a tech-friendly board so I'm generally expecting positive reactions - but perhaps there'll be a few negative ones and a few I don't knows -which we could then discuss. Funny you should mention that... Just the other day I watched a news segment about robots being used for that purpose because they are much better than humans in identifying the exact spot to do just that. They can see through the skin with infra-red cameras you see, nurses can't. I think the story is about the magnitude of the installed automaton. Cool links though; looks as if one of those are to the company who builds these machines
You definitely don't want to be there when that robot malfunctions and jabs that needle in the wrong place and/or harder than it needed to be...
Where do I insert the stake to kill it? Do I need a digital stake? Do they still die in sunlight or just look all sparkly?
As someone who has to get frequent blood tests and bi-weekly IV infusion, and whose veins almost always represent a difficulty for nurses and phlebotomists when I visit a new place, I'm wondering why you think humans are somehow better than your completely imaginary assessment of robot accuracy and sensitivity? They'll have pressure sensors and scanning ability that will make them far more accurate than humans can be, so I and my Swiss-Cheese looking arms and hands will welcome their introduction if it makes it faster and less stabby. You need to stab them in the data port with a silver stake/computer interface. Don't worry. Robocop will save us.